It was the best summer in 150 years for this once-extinct butterfly on British soil. Great Blue Butterfly (Bengaris Arian) in England has the best records of the last 150 years: scientists have counted 750,000 eggs of these butterflies, and it is estimated that about 20,000 flew this summer.
The great blue butterfly, as it is known in English, was first discovered in 1758. 200 years later, in 1979, it was declared extinct in the United Kingdom, mostly because of soil, as it was in Belgium and the Netherlands. management, but also air pollution, pesticides and collectors.
Jeremy Thomas
Good news after four years: The species Reintroduced into the wild using butterfly larvae from Sweden. It was saved from local extinction, and now the south-west of England has become the place in the world with the highest concentration of these butterflies.
“It’s incredibly satisfying,” told the BBC Ecologist David Simcox was among those responsible for the butterfly’s reintroduction in 1983. “Of course we had hope, but the first ten years were very difficult, with less than ten thousand eggs.” In June of this year, more than 700,000 eggs of this species were counted, which is absent in Portugal.
As read Report From London’s Royal Entomological Society, one of the organizations involved in the rescue project, the butterfly has a “strange life cycle”: the caterpillar that makes the butterfly produces smells and sounds that carry ants. Myrmica sabuleti to believe it was one of their larvae. Thus, they “adopt” them and take them to an underground anthill.
There, butterfly caterpillars feed on ant larvae for ten months. They then enter the chrysalis (cocoon) stage until they emerge as butterflies. Knowing this “preference” of butterflies, scientists were able to understand that these insects cannot survive without these brown ants.
Sarah Meredith
The conservation plan for this species includes converting some sites to flower-covered grasslands, which also benefit other insect species. “The biggest challenge going forward is to ensure the expansion of these butterflies Climate Develop strategies to mitigate the impacts of warmer and more extreme weather events,” said David Simcox, quoted in a report by the Royal Entomological Society of London, which he belongs to.
Despite this good news, it is one of the most endangered butterfly species in Europe and butterflies as a whole are disappearing. Butterflies act as indicators Biodiversity, meaning other insects are also on the downward trajectory. A study conducted in Germany shows this well: in 25 years, three-quarters of the flying insects in the country’s nature reserves have disappeared.
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